MICKELSON FALLS SHORT AT RIVIERA, BUT NO. 1 WITH L.A. FANS

Northern Trust Open playoff scorecard

LOS ANGELES 
With his right hand, Phil Mickelson lifted his putter off the ground in a graceful arc, as if he were raising a rifle toward the 18th hole at Riviera Country Club, as if his ball were bound to hit bottom.

Lefty saved his left hand for punctuation, for an exclamatory fist pump reserved for a golfer’s more magical moments. Bedeviled throughout his round by Riviera’s stealthily sluggish greens, Mickelson had read this one just right from a distance ShotLink’s computed at 26 feet, 9 inches. Mickelson had forced a playoff at the Northern Trust Open with a putt more than four times longer than any he had made all day.

“I was very tentative on the greens today,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to be. I was trying to knock them in, but they weren’t as fast as I was perceiving them to be. That last putt was one, I just gave it a good aggressive roll and it went right in the middle.”

In point of fact, this was not Mickelson’s last putt. Nor was it Mickelson who would hoist the trophy Sunday afternoon at the Pacific Palisades theatre known as “Hogan’s Alley.” Bill Haas would sink an even more preposterous putt — 43 feet, five inches — to beat Mickelson and Keegan Bradley on the tournament’s second playoff hole.

Killjoy.

“I don’t say this in a negative way, but everybody is cheering for Phil,” Haas said later. “He just won this last week (at Pebble Beach). He’s the man. And if I’m at home, I’m cheering for Phil. Everybody is saying, ‘Go, Phil, go Phil.’ ...

“I just was somewhat under the radar.”

Better to be under the radar than in the path of Phil’s Flock when Lefty’s leading a tournament on Sunday afternoon. Fans stood seven-deep around the green when Mickelson birdied the par-4 No. 5, and the galleries barely acknowledged that any other player was on the premises.

Since Tiger Woods has recently avoided the PGA Tour stop at Riviera, and this despite the club’s early embrace of his career, Phil Mickelson has effectively annexed Los Angeles as part of his burgeoning home base. Sunday’s playoff loss marked the fourth time in six years that Mickelson had finished first or second at Riviera and raised his career earnings at the course past the $3.5 million mark.

And if he had been even slightly better on the greens Sunday, he might have won the tournament by three or four strokes.

Less than a month ago, when Mickelson missed the cut at the Farmers Insurance open at Torrey Pines, seasoned golf writers openly wondered whether age had overtaken golf’s galumphing thrill-seeker. Though golf is a lifetime game, few players remain near its pinnacle past the age of 40. Since Mickelson’s 42nd birthday coincides with the third round of June’s U.S. Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club, the percentages would seem to favor gradual retreat over continued charges.

Yet if Mickelson’s immediate emotion Sunday afternoon was disappointment — he had, after all, won 21 of the 30 previous tournaments he had led after three rounds — he should find further reflection to be reassuring.